Examining the Continued Usage of Electronic Knowledge Repositories: An Integrated Model

Knowledge has long been recognized as one of the most valuable assets in an organization. Managing and organizing knowledge has become an important corporate strategy for organizations to gain and maintain competitive advantages in the information age. Electronic knowledge repositories (EKRs) have become increasingly popular knowledge sharing tools implemented by organizations to promote knowledge reuse. The goal of this study is to develop and test a research model that explains usersâ continued usage behavior of EKRs in public accounting firms. Theoretically grounded in the expectation-confirmation model (ECM) and commitment-based model, the research model presented in this study integrates both of these theoretical perspectives to study usersâ EKR continuance intentions.This study surveyed 230 EKR users from four large public accounting firms. Partial least squares regression was used to test the hypotheses and the explanatory power of the model. Results indicate that perceived usefulness and commitment exhibit a sustained positive influence on continuance intention. Additionally, subjective norms are positively related to calculative commitment and moral commitment. Organizational identification is positively related to affective commitment and moral commitment. Perceived usefulness is positively related to affective commitment and calculative commitment. The model comparisons with the technology acceptance model (TAM) and ECM demonstrated that the integrated model presented in this research explained 1.6% and 0.8% additional variance in continuance intention than both ECM and TAM respectively. Additional multi-group analyses were also conducted to examine the differences between knowledge seekers and contributors and the differences between knowledge novices and experts.This study raises theoretical implications in the area of knowledge management in general and EKRs in particular. It represents one of the first attempts to empirically examine usersâ continuance intention of knowledge management applications. This study has presented a different perspective on technology acceptance/continued usage by introducing commitment to explain continued IS usage. By integrating commitment and ECM, this study offers a useful framework for future studies on technology use. It demonstrates that both user commitment and perceived usefulness are strong predictors of EKR continuance intention. The results also raise interesting implications for practitioners interested in knowledge management and particularly for public accounting firms how to leverage EKRs to gain a competitive advantage.